Why Do So Many Black Male Comedians Go Viral by Mocking and Imitating Black Women?

There is a class of black male comedians on Instagram who derive laughs from portraying black women. There is the popular Suzan, a crazy and extremely jealous Jamaican girlfriend played by PrinceMarni (627,000 followers). There is also the famous Titi, a sometimes insecure and argumentative black woman played by BlameItOnKway (2.3 million followers). While these and other Instagram comedians (e.g., QuitePerry, BillionaireMH) have some pretty funny skits, one has to wonder what it means that so many black male comedians have to mock and imitate black women to go viral.

But why? It seems that both in mainstream and black culture, lampooning black women is a fast way to get laughs. While some of these skits are admittedly kind of funny, the overarching trend doesn’t have us laughing.